"That was his motivation: to lose weight and get back on his bike," said Mr. Bottigliero's brother Anthony. "People would say to him: Do it! Do it!"

The four years since he last rode were difficult for the former Marine and onetime Hell's Angel, who lived alone in a Lodi trailer park. The thickly bearded Mr. Bottigliero always was big — "his weight teetered between 280 and 380" for most of his life, his brother said, and he could easily polish off a 12-piece bucket of fried chicken in one sitting. But his weight gain had grown alarming, and in recent months Mr. Bottigliero was housebound.

At the time of his fatal heart attack on Feb. 2 — 10 days before the scheduled surgery at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx — the 61-year-old Mr. Bottigliero weighed about 600 pounds.

He died before he could meet his first grandchild, Angelina, now 8 months old.

More than 200 relatives, friends and fellow bikers honored the irrepressible Mr. Bottigliero by attending the wake Friday at Boulevard Funeral Home in his native New Milford, and a celebration of life on Saturday. The services reflected Mr. Bottigliero's outsized and bawdy personality.

His purple 1966 Harley, its "Knucklehead" engine drained of gas and oil, stood at the front of the chapel where the casket is usually displayed. On the seat was a wooden box holding Mr. Bottigliero's ashes. Adorning the box was a fabricated-metal silhouette of a busty woman, an image seen usually on the mud flaps of big trucks.

Bear would have wanted that. He loved shapely women as much as he did his Harley, and many loved him back.

"For his size, you never thought he would have those kinds of women," said old friend Robert Walsh, an ironworker from Ramsey.

Announcing his brother's wake on Facebook, Anthony Bottigliero encouraged mourners to wear "low-cut blouses." Several women obliged by draping their bras over the Harley's handlebars, next to a folded American flag.

Bear would have approved of that, too.

The fourth of eight children, Robert Bottigliero started riding motorcycles when he was 16. He joined the carpenters union after New Milford High School, working with his dad and brothers, and then entered the Marines. While in the Corps, he married Tina Moskovciak. The couple had a daughter, Karen.

Until a decade ago, Mr. Bottigliero earned a living as a home-improvement contractor and stained-glass artist. "He did stained glass like you'd never seen," Walsh said. "He had hands like a gorilla, but they were hands of a craftsman."

Moskovciak, who traveled from Alabama with Karen and baby Angelina for the funeral, said she and Bear were married for only four years but were together on and off after the divorce.

"He was a very good man but, you know, we had different beliefs," Moskovciak said.

About her former husband's weight, she said, "He just couldn't handle himself."

Friends told tales of Bear's prodigious eating. Walsh remembered his pal downing a breakfast of 20 eggs, a loaf of bread, Canadian bacon, regular bacon and sausage. "And I watched him eat every single piece of that food," Walsh said.

But more than a man with a gigantic appetite for food and women, Mr. Bottigliero was remembered as a steadfast friend you'd want on your side.